*** Committee name is Election Integrity, Civil Liberties and Civil Rights

Members of the Civil Liberties and Civil Rights Committee: Mitch
Buszek,(convener), Barbara Conroy, Paul Hendrickson, Joan Gimlin,
Pam Gilchrist, Chris Wells, Shelley Buonaiuto (taking notes).

Goal: Machine accountability
Discussion of current situation re machine accountability. In the
recent choice of machines for the handicapped by county clerks, 19
counties chose the Automark, which, being a machine which counts
paper ballots, has a paper trail. Among the counties which chose the
Sequoia, a touch screen system with no paper trail, are Bernalillo,
Dona Ana, and Santa Fe. Currently, there is a lawsuit that is

*** technically, the SOS is not 'prevented' at this point in time ... she is
waiting to see if the Court orders an injunction ...

preventing the Secretary of State from purchasing the Sequoia
machines, based on malfunctioning in the last election. Detailed
information about the technicalities of the voting machines and the
lawsuit can be gotten from vvnm at

Last legislative session in NM a bill was passed mandating that all
voting machines have

*** voter verifiable paper trails

paper trails by 2007. There is some concern
that legislators opposed to this may try to slip in an amendment
retracting this. Barbara will contact people who track bills, to ask
them to keep us informed if such an amendment appears. Sen. Jerry
Ortiz y Pino has proven a great ally of verified voting and Rep. Ed
Sandoval could also probably be trusted. Charlotte Roybal, Alliance
for Better Campaigns Coordinator, is also a good source of
information. An action all of us could take is to write a post card
to our legislators saying that we want voter verifiable paper trails
to continue to be mandated.

Paul and Mitch are going to request a briefing for our group by vvnm,

*** VVNM

to help us understand the complicated aspects of the voting systems
and the politics. This hopefully will be within the next week. Many
of us expressed the need for an intermediary to translate the more
technical terms for the citizen.

We discussed working for resolutions and ordinances to be enacted by
both the Santa Fe City Council and Santa Fe County Commission
mandating paper trails.

Joan will contact Ruth Hoffman of the Lutheran Office of
Governmental Ministry to see about arranging a course for those of
us wanting to learn to lobby effectively and efficiently. Those with
[WINDOWS-1252?]> 501C3 status can lobby for issues, but can’t endorse a
particular
candidate. We also discussed getting

*** insert 'a'

PAC, political action committee,
status, under which we could endorse a candidate.

At this point the legislature is the priority, and then working for
the resolutions and ordinances in the city and county. We could use
as a model a resolution that was passed in Pittsburgh, which Paul
Stokes forwarded to Mitch.